A Video Method For Empirically Studying Wait-Perception Bias

Customer queues resemble inventories of goods in that they both incur costs of waiting. However, the immediate costs of customer queues are primarily psychological, with subsequent costs being customer dissatisfaction and reduced future sales. A fundamental element of psychological waiting costs is wait-perception bias, which is the propensity to overestimate (or underestimate) the passage of time spent waiting. In 1985, Maister proposed a number of principles that affect wait-perception bias [Maister, D., 1985. The psychology of waiting lines. In: Czepiel, J., Solomon, M., Surprenant, C. (Eds.), The Service Encounter. Lexington Books, Lexington, MA, pp. 113-123]. Maister's principles have been frequently quoted in operations management literature, but they have rarely been put to empirical test. One challenge in trying to test these principles is that traditional empirical methods can make it very difficult to accurately represent specific waiting conditions while controlling for confounding factors.This article describes a video-based data collection methodology for studying wait-perception bias. We specifically look at Maister's principle about the impact of wait explanation on wait-perception bias. Results show that there is a significant difference in wait-perception bias due to the presence or absence of an explanation, but that whether the explanation focuses on customer cause or server cause makes little difference. The findings provide needed empirical support for one of Maister's principles, with additional contribution being the development of a video-based research methodology that is able to enrich queuing research by enabling the study of wait-perception bias. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.